Battle of San Felipe de Salamanca

The Battle of San Felipe de Salamanca occurred in 1585 when England launched a raid on the Spanish Empire's colony of San Felipe de Salamanca in the Pampas region (present-day Uruguay). The English, based out of their own colony of Bradbury, marched out of their town with a small force of musketeers and longbowmen and assaulted the Spanish town center, having killed the Spanish explorer Vicente del Cano when he attempted to spy on the English settlement. The town center was razed, and the English troops killed the remaining Spanish settlers as they hunted rhea birds to the south, forcing the Spanish to surrender. The English raid succeeded in destroying a Spanish colony, but the English would later be forced to abandon their colonies in Uruguay by the time that the war ended in 1604.